Largely eastern European, and Catholic, workers strike against hellish conditions in Globeville, Colorado’s smelters only to be scabbed on by ‘patriotic Americans’ and bullied back to work by the Church.

‘Priests and Patriot Scabs’ by Walker Smith from Industrial Worker. Vol. 2 No. 15. July 7, 1910.

At 11 o’clock at night on May 28 a strike occurred in the Globeville smelter, just outside of Denver. Nearly 400 men answered the call. The men were Austrians, Poles, Hungarians, Slavonians, Italians and Russians. Thirty-five star-spangled Americans stayed in and scabbed on the “ignorant foreigners.” The deal was engineered by 12 men, who called off the 50 men on their gang and then circulated throughout the plant asking the others to quit. The men dropped their tools or threw them into the furnaces and left the smelter in a body. The oncoming watch was met and they, too, refused to work. The fires were left burning and the machinery running, and as a consequence the bosses and the “moral heroes” had to get busy. The men had been getting $1.65 to $2.10 per day and the strike was for a 25 cents raise for every employe, the hours to remain as before, ten for yardmen, eight for inside workers The men found it impossible to live on $1.65, and even the money which their children brought by working in the beet fields was not sufficient to give them a bare subsistence.

The strike lasted several days and there was every indication that the men would win when the Austrian consul and the Catholic priests took a hand. The workers were forced by these prostitutes to accept a raise of 15 cents instead of the 25 cents demanded. During the strike the furnaces were coaled with the softest grade of coal so as to throw up a volume of smoke and thus cause the strikers to believe the furnaces were being worked. This did not fool the men, so the bosses used religion to do their dirty work. The men are sure to come out again before long, as the raise is still insufficient for their simplest needs. The members of Local 26, I.W.W., were on the scene, but were handicapped by having to speak through interpreters. The twelve strike leaders are familiar with industrial unionism, and it was through their efforts that the men displayed the class spirit. The boys here will continue to pump good literature into Globeville and will also do what they can toward effecting an organization.

This strike shows one thing very plainly, and that is this–the workers have no religion in common with their masters.

The God of Our Masters.

The working class and the employing class have no God in common. God is but the reflection of the ideas of the ruling class. The God of a warlike people is a warring and revengeful God. The God of an agricultural people is one who sends the sun and rain to produce bountiful harvests. The economic conditions of the times form the basis of existing belief in God. The God of today is a capitalist member of the Employing Order of Never-Sweats. He has a modern bookkeeping system operated by Saint Peter. If his subjects transgress the shop rules they are fined. If his subjects are good and obedient they are rewarded. And if they rebel against the shop rules and stir up strife their names are put on the blacklist This God of the capitalist is blind to the fact that little children are slaving in the industries. This God of the capitalists seems unaware that millions are hungry in the midst of plenty. Truly this God is a capitalist God, built up in the image of the employing class. Just as belief in God, ideas of religion and veneration of priests, preachers and pimps, leave the minds of the workers, in that measure do they gain self-reliance. Just in that degree do they seek to benefit themselves here rather than hereafter. They look, not to God, but to themselves and their class, for relief from their misery. If the workers feel the need of a God they should at least be particular of the quality. Let their God be of the working class, by the working class, for the working class.

Northern Colorado coal mines are being filled with non-union men. Employment sharks of Denver are hiring men for ranch work and shipping them for the least skilled work in the mines. At Superior men are being held by force of arms because of debts due the company for transportation were brought from Virginia and West Virginia under misrepresentation. The strikers are not so confident of success as at first.

The Industrial Union Bulletin, and the Industrial Worker were newspapers published by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) from 1907 until 1913. First printed in Joliet, Illinois, IUB incorporated The Voice of Labor, the newspaper of the American Labor Union which had joined the IWW, and another IWW affiliate, International Metal Worker.The Trautmann-DeLeon faction issued its weekly from March 1907. Soon after, De Leon would be expelled and Trautmann would continue IUB until March 1909. It was edited by A. S. Edwards. 1909, production moved to Spokane, Washington and became The Industrial Worker, “the voice of revolutionary industrial unionism.”

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/industrialworker/iw/v2n15-w67-jul-02-1910-IW.pdf